Tongue Tied
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Kurt has been waiting a long time for his fiance to propose, but even though Blaine says he will, Blaine has yet to 'pop the question'. It's not that he doesn't want to marry Kurt. It's just that every time he gets the chance, he finds himself at a loss for words. Klaine. Kurt H. Blaine A.


**Kurt has been waiting a long time for his fiance to propose, but even though Blaine says he will, even though he planned a huge gala just for the occasion, Blaine has yet to 'pop the question'. It's not that he doesn't want to marry Kurt. It's just that every time he gets the chance, he finds himself at a loss for words. In the middle of an argument and at the end of his rope, Blaine sees something in Kurt's classroom that helps him figure out exactly what he's been trying to say.**

 **Written for the Klaine Advent Drabble prompts anniversary, Broadway, competition, day, escape, fan, guide, hope, indecent, jumble, kink, legend, moon, number, ocean, and passion, and sort of pokes fun at the Klaine Advent Drabble by forcing Blaine to use all these words.**

"Kurt! Let's talk about this!" Blaine races after him, dodging parked cars, and parents walking their kids to school, trying to catch his boyfriend before he makes it to the steps of the school building he's heading for at Mach 9.

"You know, sometimes I think we talk too much." Kurt bolts across the street, hoping to lose Blaine behind the school buses pulling in. But when Blaine succeeds in making it through the crowd of yellow buses, Kurt continues his argument. "We've talked about it and talked about it, but the _one_ thing we haven't done so far is _go for it_."

"I know," Blaine replies. "I know, and I'm sorry, Kurt. I really am."

"You know, I didn't wait for you" – Kurt refuses to slow up, and Blaine takes the steps behind him two at time, dragging their argument into Kurt's place of work – "I took the initiative, and I asked you to marry me three years ago, but you said no. You said it was important to you to ask me, so I waited. I didn't think I'd have to wait more than a week. But here we are, three years later…"

"I just…I want it to be perfect, Kurt."

"Perfect?" Kurt stops short in the hallway, waving curtly at two other teachers who say _hello_ to him as they head to their classrooms. "You threw a party, Blaine. You invited everyone we knew. You flew my dad in so you could ask his permission in person. You had it catered. There was music, dancing, professional street performers, you even hired acrobats, and at the last minute, in front of _everyone_ , you backed out, which, to me, means you're not waiting for the perfect time, you're waiting for the perfect person, and I'm just not him."

"Yes, you're him! Of course, you're him!" Blaine waits outside the teacher's lounge while Kurt puts away his lunch, ignoring the uncomfortable, and a few star stuck, looks he gets from the other teachers in the room, sharing coffee and gossip, of which this tete a tete must be vaulting to the top of the list. "It's not you, Kurt. It's me."

"Ugh!" Kurt groans, blowing past Blaine on his way out the door. "I can't believe you said that!"

"Listen, Kurt," Blaine pleads. "I look at you, and I think I know what I want to say, but then I get so…so…tongue tied."

"Well, you know, asking someone to marry you takes four simple words," Kurt snaps as he hurries to his classroom, sure he'll lose Blaine once he gets there, "will, you, marry, and me. Now, put them together, make it into a question, and ask it!"

"But…but that's not good enough, Kurt," Blaine fumbles, "I…"

Kurt storms into his classroom and immediately puts on the brakes, composing himself before he has to address his class – 24 gifted fifth-graders in all, impressionable young minds who don't need to see Kurt lose it at his boyfriend. But Blaine doesn't stop outside the classroom. He swiftly follows Kurt inside, catching the door before it smacks him in the face. Stepping in to Kurt's brightly-colored classroom, the other half of Kurt's world, the place Kurt will have no problem existing if everything with him and Blaine goes south, Blaine realizes this is it. This is his moment. If he doesn't seize it, he'll lose everything - the life he's built with Kurt and everything he's ever wanted. But how does Blaine tell Kurt that? It seems simple. The words are right there. He just thought them, but they don't seem to want to make the trip out his mouth.

Blaine searches the room. Numerous pairs of eyes look at him curiously, children sitting at their desks, hands folded over their math books. Blaine doesn't know what he's looking for - most likely, inspiration, but where in the world is he going to find it in here?

A quick glance of the back wall, and Blaine stumbles on the one thing that always gives him inspiration.

 _Kurt_.

But not Kurt himself, Kurt by proxy – a bulletin board he has set up in the back of the classroom that the kids can use to review everything they've learned over the school year. Blaine remembers seeing Kurt construct it, all the time he spent with appliques and glitter, picking out stickers, and writing themes out by hand in neat calligraphy. Kurt spent as much time on this bulletin board as he did his fashion designs (still a major hobby of his). When he unveiled it on open school night, he was so proud of it. It's been an ongoing project, something that grows and builds and changes. Kind of like their relationship - always a work in progress.

But unlike Kurt's bulletin board, their "work in progress" has to move forward a step, or it's never going to go anywhere.

Just then, Blaine finds exactly what he's been looking for. Scrolling down the wall, written in neat script, is something Kurt jokingly calls (at home, in private) his P.I.S.S. List – Progress in Spelling for Success. All the words on it seem to speak to Blaine, as if they were chosen for him, just for this moment, so he can figure out what he wants to say.

He takes Kurt's arms and spins him around, stopping him right as he's about to start class.

"Blaine!" Kurt hisses. "I have a class to teach. You need to go."

"No," Blaine says. "Not until you hear me out."

Kurt looks at his students, all with books closed, all with hands folded, waiting patiently to see what's about to happen next. Kurt doesn't want to make a scene. He doesn't want to fight in front of them. The easiest way to get rid of Blaine will be to let him have his say.

"Fine," Kurt says in a tight voice. "You get five minutes." Kurt leans in an inch with warning in his eyes. "Keep it PG."

"Okay." Blaine takes a deep breath and Kurt crosses his arms, pulling them from Blaine's grasp. That's not a good sign, when Kurt doesn't want to be touched. But Blaine decides to keep the faith that this will work. It has to. He has no contingency plan if Kurt breaks up with him – nothing aside from the standard obscene amounts of alcohol and months of severe depression. "Kurt, yesterday was an anniversary for us. You might not have known it, but it was. A few months after we met, you talked about going to Broadway, and I said, "Only if I go with you." You laughed it off. You might not even have heard me right. We were in The Lima Bean, and it was busy, and loud. That wasn't the moment that I fell in love with you. I had done that months before. It was the moment I knew I wanted to be with you forever. That you were the one, and I'd follow you no matter where you went. And here we are, only I'm the one on Broadway, and you found your bliss here, teaching. I thought when I got my first lead in a musical that you would resent me for living _your_ dream. You were getting ready for parent-teacher conferences, and do you remember what you told me? You said that life is a race – a crazy, stupid rat-race, but that we're running that race together, side-by-side. I didn't beat you by getting on Broadway, and you didn't lose by changing your dream. So often, life can seem like a competition, even between lovers, but it's not like that with you. Day by day, we're still running this race together, and I don't want that to end. Kurt, you're my great escape, and I'm your biggest fan. We're guiding one another on this journey. I hope you don't find it indecent when I say that you've ruined me for anyone else. You've turned me into a mad jumble of a man, where everything I thought I knew makes no sense unless you're in there somewhere. Now, I don't want to be the person who puts a kink in your plans, but if you've changed your mind about me, don't expect me to understand. You're a legend, Kurt. You always have been, even in high school, and a person like you only comes along once in a blue moon. The thought of losing you, of not seeing you every day, of not having your love…I can't breathe. I know you've counted the days since that day you asked me to marry you, and that number keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'm afraid that by putting this off as long as I have, I've created oceans between us that have grown so wide, I won't be able to cross them to get to you. You're so amazing. You have such passion, and you put it into everything that you do. You never hold back. I didn't want to hold back either, I…"

Blaine peeks over Kurt's shoulder, but apparently they've only gotten up to the letter 'p'. Moon, number, ocean, and passion were the last words on the list.

It's all up to him now.

"I didn't think getting down on my knee and asking you to marry me was enough. It's such a simple gesture, such an overplayed move. You deserve more. But right now, it's all I have, so…" Blaine drops to one knee, managing to snatch Kurt's hand, and an entire chorus of fifth graders _awww's_. "Kurt Hummel, my best friend, my one true love, would you, right here, right now, in the presence of Intermediate Class 5-13, do me the biggest honor in the whole world, and agree to be my husband?"

Kurt looks around at the fluttering eyelashes of swooning 10-year-old girls, and a few less-than-stoic boys, to the suspense-filled gazes of teachers who had followed them in and heard Blaine's whole proposal, and as happy as Kurt is that they're there to share this with him, none of those people matter at the moment. No one but the man on one knee, waiting for an answer, matters.

"Well, that was kind of long winded," Kurt kids, earning him a polite titter, "but it was an ingenious use of my spelling list, so…"

"So…" Blaine asks, squeezing Kurt's hand, starting to lose hope, that this was too little too late.

"Yes," Kurt says, giving in to a smile and a few tears. "Yes, Blaine, I'll marry you." Kurt pulls Blaine to his feet as their audience of students and teachers cheer. They forgo a kiss for the sake of keeping things age appropriate, but they hug each other tight, stealing a second for themselves before real life has to begin again.

"So," Kurt whispers in Blaine's ear before the applause dies down, "was that finally enough?"

"No," Blaine says, "not by a long shot. But it's a start."


End file.
